The present invention relates to a method and system for providing low frequency enhancement for a musical instrument amplification system. Electric instruments and instrument amplification has been in use for many years with continued evolution and improvement in sound quality. Guitar amplification in particular has seen several evolutionary changes such as increases in output power and improvements in speaker technology. For many years there has been a desire to increase the amount of usable gain in the amplifier in an attempt to provide the musician use of a highly saturated and distorted sound. In recent years a growing number of musicians are using 7-string guitars and or detuning the instrument to provide a lower deeper sound. Instrument amplifier technology has not kept up with the musicians desire to reproduce these low frequencies provided by the 7-string or detuned guitar. Most guitar and instrument amplifiers fall far short of the ability to reproduce the fundamental frequency of even the de-tuned standard 6 string guitar and few if any can reproduce the fundamental frequency of a de-tuned 7-string guitar. Limited attempts have been made to provide a guitar amplifier capable of reproducing the lowest frequencies of the instrument. One prior art system in use as far back as the 1960's was produced by a well-known guitar/amplifier company, Gibson, and offered a self-contained guitar amplifier called the “Medalist”. This combo amplifier, an instrument amplifier that includes the instrument preamp, power amplifier and speakers in one package, provided an internal crossover network used for separating the audio spectrum into low and high frequency signals. A 15-inch woofer reproduced the low frequencies, and a 10-inch mid-high frequency speaker reproduced the high frequency signals.
In recent years instrument amplification systems incorporating a separate external active subwoofer or a speaker cabinet with an internal active subwoofer amplifier have started to appear. One major shortcoming of these systems is that the crossover network, which is required to provide a proper separation and balance between the high and low frequency bands, has been incorporated in the guitar amplifier. This provides a closed loop system requiring the musician to use both the manufacturers guitar amplifier and subwoofer speaker together as a composite system. Many musicians prefer the sound of one specific instrument amplifier. However, a closed loop system with the crossover in the instrument amplifier, as described above, will not facilitate the option to use any instrument amplifier with the active instrument subwoofer system. Furthermore, the current systems also require multiple connections between the instrument amplifier and the subwoofer speaker system, complicating the use of the system and making any desired expansion of the system difficult.